Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Where is the pilot? I hope he is not on the roads. I have lost my train of thought. I am questioning the pilot to see how we got into aviation here. Signs have now been put up but they are black. We have a limit but they are on a black background. Again, they have no authority. They are there as a kind of a warning, which is great, but they have no authority. It is not a direction. A motorist does not need to abide by those signs because they have no standing in regulation. Those black spots are still there, numerous accidents take place but these vans refuse to place themselves in the middle of these areas or immediately adjacent to them for whatever reason. Sometimes it is said that it is too dangerous to locate them there but I am sure the county council could set up a bay for Garda cars or these vans to be located at accident spots, as it has done on many motorways. We all know the tragic results of these accident black spots in our counties over decades, possibly nearly 40 years in some areas.

I am questioning the enormous cost associated with operating the Garda safety contract each year. From 2012 to 2015, it cost the State over €17 million to maintain the contract with a cost of almost €16 million in 2011. From 2010 to date, revenue generated by the safety contract has totalled €32 million so something is radically wrong there. Taxpayers' money is being used and paid out but we are not getting a good system. While people who drive at excessive speed are being punished, and we cannot fight against that, on the outskirts of a town where the limit changes from 100 km to 80 km, 80 km to 60 km, and 60 km to 50 km in a short space of road, it like shooting fish in a barrel because a motorist could be a couple of kilometres over it with different incremental speed signs that change so often.

As I said, the black spots are being ignored - those cameras and those signs. There is a lot of work for the Minister to do in that area and I am surprised it has not been tackled. I am not blaming the Minister, Deputy Ross, for it all; his predecessors could have tackled those incremental signs. The black-spot signs were good warning signs. I grew up seeing them and inquiring what they were. A black spot is a dangerous spot and now they will not put them up anymore. They tell us that the signs are irrelevant. They have put up signs with a black background, but that sign has no legal standing. That is very disquieting and pretty unnecessary.

The Minister is predicating many aspects of the Bill on figures from the RSA, figures from the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport, and figures compiled and supplied back and forward between the Garda divisions and the RSA. Last week on RTÉ an RSA spokesperson said it had been denied recent figures. What is going on? I know the Minister, Deputy Ross, is not the Minister for Justice and Equality, but surely the RSA should not have to be begging for statistics; it should be getting them freely and working in unison to try to tackle this issue. It is easy to blame learner drivers and others when there are many issues. Without the figures, people do not have trust. As I said before, if people do not have trust in the legislation, it will be much harder to police it. It gives me no joy.

On the vans, as I said, I would prefer to see that money put into rebuilding the traffic corps, whose numbers have been cut by 50% or more. Funding for their cars and other specialist equipment has been cut over the years since the recession, but it is now time to beef them up. I salute the members of the Garda traffic corps in the Tipperary division who do such Trojan work. However, if they are stopped in an area for any reason - they can stop anywhere they like and they are enforcing the laws of the land - and if there is a robbery or an accident up the road or whatever, they can leave immediately on getting a radio signal and attend to that. They are there quite fast.

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